Prologue: Origins of a ghost.
"Darkness, all I know is darkness"
Begin Prologue
I knew helping that blue haired kid was a mistake, but still, I just couldn't help myself. Thirty years in the Serpentine Guard had instilled the idea of "protect and serve" deep into my psyche.
And besides, I could never let someone just butcher a little kid right in front of me. Not even if that somebody was a maverick.
Maybe I never saw myself as much of a hero-type, but the idealist in my younger, naïve self still remained somewhere in my twisted, demented mind. The idea that one should stamp out evil wherever it may be, saving innocent people everywhere, the idea that I could make a difference. What complete bullshit. I learned the hard way in the Guard it isn't so easy. And besides, what good did the guard do for me anyway. Learn how to fire a blaster; ho do destroy basic machanaliods, and how to wield an energy cutlass without lopping your own fucking head off. That was fine, for a while, and then the came that day. That one-day when everything went wrong.
Serpent Security forces had engaged mavericks in a crowded amusement park. And while projected casualty rates would be high if humans backed up the mechanaloid security drones, we were sent in anyway. And then my team, a group of thirty human and reploid guardsmen ended up in a slaughterhouse. The park was jam packed with panicking civilians, and the mavericks had long since overwhelmed the security drones and where raising all kinds of hell. I can still smell the o-zone mixed with the gore of the charred, maimed, and sometimes-eviscerated remains of the scores of innocent men, women, and children. By god, I still see those fucking children.
We did all we could, but in the end, all we could do was get slaughtered with the rest of them. Pantheons blasting everything that moved, as they approached we opened fire, but that just made them focus on us. As my friends, the humans and repliods I had spent so much time with fell all around me, I felt my mind shatter like a vase after a bout with gravity. After that, all I remember is seeing red, and waking up a month later, screaming like the lunatic I became in some hospital.
And after all that, some robot monkey with a pyrotechnic fetish kills me. How poetic.
The darkness around me suddenly becomes flooded with light. "Funny," I find myself uttering," the light comes to me. I guess this saves me a trip. How convenient." Just as I get prepared for the choirs of angels, or the boy band of devils, a rather un-divine voice comes from the light.
"…ro, ..u … a he.."
The voice is strange, sounding synthesized, and weak. Through the light, a figure began to take shape. I could just make out a glowing; floating hexagon seemed to be at the epicenter of the light. Yet as I gazed at the mysterious example of my dreaded geometry class, I began to see the silhouette of a man. A man with long, flowing hair, a strong posture, and a reploids battle armor. But as quickly as the silhouette appeared, it vanished, leaving only the floating hexagon.
The synthesized voice appeared again, but this time with more strength.
"Hero. … … help … …. …xzvw%$#. HERO"
The light emanating from the shape intensified, but this time it began to completely engulf me. In my current mental and physical state, there was little I could do to stop it, but my weary mind didn't really give a damn. After all, I just died, didn't I? So what if a floating thingamajig was engulfing me in god knows what. I'm dead, who cares?
The light had finished engulfing me, my brain exploded with every kind of pain imaginable. My body, in tatters from the beating the ape, felt like it was welded to an electric wall. Basically being burned and electrocuted at the same time. The pain was so intense, that everything became numb, and I was unable to think. Then, a life began flashing before my eyes, but if it was my life, I sure didn't recognize any of it.
I saw a group of glowing red eyes approaching me, with arm cannons raised menacingly at me. The red eyes were encased in a stalking, mechanical body. The red-eyed machines were blue, with a strangely familiar helmet. In fact, every thing about these machines was nostalgic, almost like an old friend I couldn't remember. But as I thought back, I couldn't remember anything. But before I could think any further about my absence of a past, a faint whimper attracts my attention.
A small human girl with blond hair, pleading tear-stained eyes, and a pink jumpsuit and headdress was staring at me. She didn't look much older than fifteen, and she looked out of place for the strange wire-filled sewer like environment we were in. The girl looked up to me, and with a voice filled with desperation began to plead.
"Zero, help me."
"Help me!"
My eyes snapped open, and again I was in the residential war-zone. The blue haired kid was trapped in a corner, and that fire monkey was closing in. Instinctively, I reached for a blaster I knew I didn't have and pointed it at the monkey. Suddenly, an outline of what appeared to be joints appeared on my now shaded vision, and the aped head and the jewel on its chest were highlighted. Not really understanding, I aimed for the jewel and opened fire.
The ape turned as the bolts of blaster fire impacted its chest. It looked shocked to see my alive, and I couldn't blame it. Suddenly, it began to grin.
"A Megaman? How fun! All right, now I get to kill a Megaman! Showtime little hero, come and get it!"
The flaming monkey became a great ball of fire, and dashed towards me. Calmly, A reached to my left leg, found a holster, and grabbed what I knew was a beam saber. I had never held one of these things before, but with a casual flick of the wrist, I activated its green triangular blade and stared at the charging inferno. "A Megaman?" I said calmly, "Don't know what that is. I'm no mega anything, you dumb-ass ape. My name is Avant. Avant Zero."
Just before the monkey was in front of my face, I quickly raised my arm, a streak of green light tracing right through the center of the inferno ape, scrote to sternum. I could feel the heat of the maverick pass to my right and left. I had cut it clean in two. This shocked the monkey, shocked t so much that it stopped laughing. Even as its now halved power core began to explode, it began to utter its final phrase. "N.. No, this can't… S.O.U.L, I have failed!"
And with that, Overheat Orangutan was no more.
End Prologue.